Izumi Koushirou and the Splendiferous Valentine's Day Shindig
by Fizzing Wizard
Summary: February and I are old enemies, and I am very silly. This is the product of a sudden whim to write a Valentine's Day fic with Koushirou being a ridiculous little stalker, Jou spreading love the only way he knows how (that is to say awkwardly), and Taichi exploding all the things. Meanwhile, devious Miyako and Daisuke start plotting ways to make senpai notice them this year...
1. February the First

**Izumi Koushirou and the Splendiferous Valentine's Day Shindig  
Whose Splendor Was So Diferous  
It Ought to be Immortalized in Song**

**(alternate title: "Why Everyone Hates February")**

* * *

**Chapter One  
February the First**

To: just_kido sushiweb (a) sushiweb-dot-com  
From: myhairitsalive (a) sushiweb-dot-com  
Subject: be my valentine?

Hip hip hoo-ray for our favorite Bespectacled Casanova, whose mane gleams like the backside of a porpoise and who gallops free as the wind, except when he is chained to his desk by several enormous textbooks and his tie which is once again caught on a screw. I hope it isn't the gangster leprechaun tie I gave you for your birthday.

I am writing to tell you that as student body president of Odaiba Junior High, I, Yagami Taichi, have decided to use the rest of our winter funds for a splendiferous Valentine's Day shindig. I, Yagami Taichi, am pulling out all the stops since we decided to blow the budget and leave next year's student council in the lurch (how will they learn to deal with the world unless they suffer?).

There will be red red streamers that will fall on everyone's heads while they mash faces, and heart-shaped balloons and complimentary chocolate boxes complete with naked cherubs for all guests. Yamato's band will play some gooey music and five third years have already offered to man (and woman) a couple kissing booths, but _shhh_ we are keeping that very secret from our supervisor. If you can extract your tie from that screw without strangling yourself, I would be very honored if you would hightail your hoity-toity prep school ass over to the Odaiba Jr. High gymnasium on the fourteenth day of the second month, as tradition dictates we should make merry in nasty old February. One must respect tradition. If you do not show up I will assume you strangled to death and take it upon myself to eat your chocolate box.

RSVP and all that jazz

try not to drown in the sea of anatomy papers that I'm sure stretches from your classroom all the way to Shibaura pier

Yours truly

Lord and Master of Odaiba Jr. Yagami Taichi

P.S. are you allergic to nuts, if you are then I selflessly volunteer myself to eat your chocolate-covered almonds.

* * *

The morning of February First dawned like many other February Firsts – cold, gray, and smelling faintly of misery and anguish.

The asphalt on the road to the school was buried under an entire month's worth of snow, some of which had melted into slurry and later refrozen smooth to give it a nice ice rink-like slipperiness. It was while Koushirou was carefully trying to skate around a large clump of questionably yellow snow that he became aware of just _how_ slippery. As he picked his way around the clump, a large and stupid something barreled into him from behind and sent him spinning into the bank. He landed gracelessly on his side, wincing more from the thought of the grapefruit-sized bruise that would swell on his hip by tomorrow than from actual pain. The safety of his laptop was of more immediate concern.

"Oh my God, I'm sorry, man, here let me – Koushirou?!" Daisuke, it turned out, was the large and stupid something that went barreling down ice slick roads. A grin broke across his face. "I've been looking all over for you!"

"To knock into the snow?" Koushirou muttered with a glare of resentment as he brushed frost off his laptop case.

"I checked at the junior high, but the computer club said you'd already left," Daisuke yammered on. "How is it the computer club president gets to go home before everyone else?"

"The computer club president has to play catch up on three days' homework on account of being out sick with the flu."

Daisuke took a couple steps back.

"I'm not contagious anymore, Daisuke."

"Oh, good." He still looked wary.

"Why were you harassing the computer club about me?"

"I desperately, desperately need your advice," Daisuke clasped his hands in a beseeching gesture and gazed at Koushirou. "Won't you please take pity on your humble underclassman and share with him from your bottomless pot of wisdom?"

For someone with a bottomless pot of wisdom, Koushirou had a sinking feeling his judgment had badly erred when he answered with a nod. "Alright. But let's go inside, I want to check my toes for signs of gangrene."

"Great, this is very private anyway," Daisuke replied. Koushirou raised a brow. "Not the kind of thing I'd want anyone overhearing. I trust _you,_ you're the trustworthy polo shirt-type, but some of the trees have ears," he went on in a conspiratorial whisper, and shot a young maple an accusing glare as they passed.

Yoshie, Koushirou's mother, met them at the door. "You two look frozen," she clucked with a maternal tilt of her head. "How about warm apple cider and gingersnaps for a snack?"

Koushirou was not much for sweets, but he loved the tang of mulled cider. As Yoshie went to lay out their snack, he and Daisuke pulled off their boots as quick as fumbling icicle fingers could, then shuffled into his room.

"Okay," Koushirou said, once their bellies were warming with cider and Koushirou had given his laptop a just-to-be-safe once over to make sure nothing had come loose that wasn't supposed to. "What's the big secret, Daisuke?"

"Well – it's –" Daisuke's cheeks took on a pink hue. Perhaps he really _did_ have something highly private and personal to share, Koushirou thought while trying to puzzle out why, if that were the case, he wanted to discuss it with Koushirou, of all people. Koushirou's solution to most Problems of a Personal Nature was to play hours of online sudoku until his mind filled with so many numbers that they nudged everything else out. Problems of a Personal Nature belonged in an airtight box, in Koushirou's opinion, wrapped in heavy chains and dropped in the Bermuda Triangle, to become just as much a mystery lost in time as Amelia Earhart.

"You know Valentine's Day is in two weeks," began Daisuke after a few moments of uncomfortable fidgeting. "And I don't give two craps about cupids and flowers or any of that sappy sentimental stuff. I don't often lie on the floor in my room clutching pillows and sobbing over the pangs of love while I listen to Taylor Swift. But there are some."

"– Some… what?"

"Pangs. Of love," answered Daisuke.

Koushirou couldn't help but frown. "You wanted to talk to me about your pangs?" This was very unusual. "Okay, well, it happens to the best of us…"

Daisuke rolled his eyes. "No, dummy. If I wanted to cry over my love life with someone, I'd find Miyako. I want to do something about my pangs, so I've come to you for advice."

"Daisuke," Koushirou managed in spite of his state of shock, "I can't advise you about love. The only things I know about love come from the time my mother forced me to watch Patrick Swayze in _Dirty Dancing_." He paused. "Would your… _love interest_ be impressed by Patrick Swayze?"

"I don't think so," Daisuke frowned doubtfully. "That's what I came to you for. You would know better than me what he likes."

"What _who_ likes?"

"Taichi," Daisuke exclaimed with a sigh, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

And in some ways it kind of was, Koushirou realized. He should have figured it out himself. Wherever Taichi went, Daisuke tagged along with his eyes and his grin for no one else. Taichi once compared him to a "heat-seeking missile." Taichi liked Daisuke, so he never said much to indicate he might be intruding, even when Taichi and Koushirou were playing Golden Eye 007 on two-player mode, and all the wins Koushirou accumulated mostly had to do with Daisuke squirming in to stick a finger in Taichi's ear with a shout of "Wet willy!" and Taichi dropping his controller to chase after him.

But Koushirou had not figured it out, and now he couldn't trust his voice not to creak like an unoiled door hinge if he so much as tried to reply. He had not figured it out, but that really wasn't surprising, considering he thought, like Taichi, that Daisuke's tendency for PDA was just his overzealous cry for attention. And he thought, like Taichi, that Daisuke followed Taichi around and agreed with everything he said because after all he shared genes with Jun, he couldn't suppress his inner fan boy. He also thought Daisuke liked girls.

"What about Hikari?" Koushirou asked (or rather squeaked).

"Yesterday's news. You could say she was my gateway drug into Yagami admiration."

"Gateway – So you like boys now?"

"Have you never heard of a bisexual," Daisuke replied with a look of boredom.

"No – I mean I've heard of bisexuals – I mean, so you like," Koushirou found he could not string words together anymore. "You like Taichi," he breathed. It took everything in him not to choke on his own tongue.

"Yes," sighed Daisuke in exasperation, as oblivious to Koushirou's turmoil as to the gingersnap crumbs hanging off his lower lip. "And you are Taichi's right hand man. So I came to you to ask what I should do to snag him."

"To _snag_ him?"

"Woo him. Court him. Make him swoon, make his heart flutter. Stoke fire in his furnace."

_"Stoke fire in his –"_ Now Koushirou was sure he'd made a lapse in judgment in letting Daisuke speak of _anything_ that he didn't want the trees to hear. Why his wisdom chose this moment to abandon him, he could only attribute to karma and its tendency to bite where it hurts the most. All this belonged in a box. In the Bermuda Triangle. With Amelia Earhart, who surely collected mountains of strangers' personal problems and wiled away her time on some forsaken island writing horrific fanfiction about them.

_I did not hear that, I did not hear that,_ Koushirou told himself firmly. _No one is stoking fires _anywhere,_ all Daisuke's got in his head is soccer, and pizza, and Veemon, and his only problem in the world is he can't play soccer with Veemon while eating pizza._ Though more than likely he'd attempted it at least once.

Daisuke's eyes had gotten very big. "Dude, are you alright?" he asked with some apprehension, as what little blood was left drained from Koushirou's face.

Koushirou scrubbed furiously at his forehead. _You're in the sixth grade!_ he wanted to shout. _What business do you have talking about other people's furnaces?! You should be wetting your pants at night and swallowing wayward dimes!_

Alright, maybe Daisuke wasn't quite _that_ young. But Koushirou was only fourteen himself. He knew nothing about stoking people's furnaces. And he did not want to know.

Besides, Daisuke and Taichi, together? He tried to picture it. He supposed it would be a little like a boy with a puppy. Taichi would let Daisuke lick his ice cream, let him lie on his lap, throw tennis balls for him to chase. All things they did now, in fact, only Koushirou had never before seen it as flirting. _Was_ it flirting? Did that mean Taichi saw it that way? Had there been flirting going on right under Koushirou's nose all this time, while he buried himself in computer programming lit and tried to deny the existence of things like mutual attraction and the swapping of mucous?

He felt – he felt – and why did his chest _hurt_ all of a sudden?

"Koooooushiroooou," Daisuke slapped his cheek. "Say something!"

"Letters," Koushirou blurted out, with a huge sucking gasp like a trout flopping on the floor of a fishing boat. The confused, somewhat alarmed expression on Daisuke's face didn't change. "At times like these, people write love letters to the person they like," he explained.

"I know that." Daisuke sounded disappointed. "I was hoping I could give him something that would _speak_ to him, you know? He gets letters like that all the time. I don't want to be just another particularly studly leaf on the breeze. But I also know he's not the type for roses and scented candles, and he'd probably be pretty confused if I rolled a meatball to him with my nose. _You_ are closer to him than almost anyone. You've got to help me, Koushirou. Have you noticed, I'm wasting away here! It's lights out for me if you can't teach me how to impress him."

"Well – well," Koushirou thought. What did Taichi like? "He likes soccer. You could write a poem for him on a soccer ball, in all the white spaces. He'd have to figure out which line came next, like a jigsaw puzzle."

"I guess," Daisuke's lips scrunched to one side.

"Or he also loves mandarin oranges." Good Lord, how could he be any worse at this? "A… fruit basket, maybe?"

"I was thinking maybe I would mow a profession of my ardor into the grass at Rainbow Park." A few bits gingersnap tumbled off Daisuke's face as he started wiggling with pent-up excitement. "But it might be hard to get past the groundskeeper with the lawnmower. Then I thought I'd sing to him at the junior high's Valentine's Day party. I hear there's going to be karaoke."

If part of love included the willingness to debase and humiliate yourself in the most creative way possible, Koushirou felt very sure that he wanted no part of it. But he thought he'd be remiss in his duty as Daisuke's senpai if he didn't nip this well-meant, but bound for spectacular and very public failure, idea in the bud before Daisuke decided to shave Taichi's name into the back of his head.

"Look, it's true Taichi likes fireworks and extravagant displays." They were only having a Valentine's Day party because Taichi felt his life had been too dull and lacking in extravagance while he slogged through examination hell. "But he's not such a fan of drama. If he were going to confess… attraction… to someone, I think he'd be very practical about it. Maybe there'd be a few fireworks," he admitted as an afterthought. "But when it came to the heart of the matter, he'd be very direct, very open. He wouldn't want the other person to feel cornered."

Hopefully that would suffice to bring Daisuke back down to ground level. Love, he supposed, was a bit like being tied to a kite, soaring through the clouds while in blissful denial that at any moment you may crash into a tree and your shirt become forever ensnared in its branches, while everyone around laughs at your folly. Or the kite-flier may let go of the string, leaving you to float aimlessly through wind and hail until you end up in some yard somewhere, lost and abandoned with LeeAnn Womack lyrics on loop in your pathetic lovesick head.

After a long moment during which Daisuke adopted as deeply pensive an expression as Koushirou had ever seen on him, he gave a reluctant nod. "Yeah, I guess cornering him would give him a skewed idea of my intentions," he said sagely.

_You are twelve years old,_ Koushirou bit his lip to keep back a groan, _what 'intentions' could you _possibly _have?_

"Instead of the lawn at Rainbow Park, maybe I'll carve my feelings into his bed post. Then he'll be the only one to see it."

At least Daisuke had returned to Earth. Maybe he'd turned up somewhere up in the Himalayas rather than on a nice flat Indiana plain, but laws of gravity remained intact and that Koushirou called progress.

"Alright," said Daisuke. "I'm going to confess to him. I'll give it a whirl. I don't know how yet, but I'll think of something perfect. Thanks for the advice, man. I knew you were the one to go to."

"Really, but I didn't even have many ideas," Koushirou replied. _And Taichi would have a good laugh at the few I did come up with._

"I didn't need ideas so much as I needed to know how Taichi thinks. All that stuff about drama and not making him feel like he's Bambi and I'm a hungry pack of wolves. That was good. I mean, I'll make a note about mandarin oranges, too." Daisuke shrugged one shoulder. "You never know when that may come in handy. If he's picky about his fruit, I'll have you to thank for preventing me from making a fool of myself by buying him oranges from California."

* * *

What was it about Valentine's Day that people held so sacred? People who most days were perfectly happy to suffer their affliction in silence suddenly rushed in droves to stick their necks below the guillotine, to toss their oars into the rapids, to make the jump without a parachute. All in the vain hope that their Certain Someone would be there to pull them out of danger, or better, to show them there never was any danger at all – the guillotine dropping only out of its desire to be close to them. And Koushirou knew what a ridiculous comparison that was to make, but nothing about that hot, unreasonable, animal thing called love seemed rational. At least he saw the truth, that the danger was real and present, and he'd decided long ago that he'd rather live with the endless torment of What Ifs and If Onlys, than willingly place himself beneath the quivering blade and wait for it to fall.

But in spite of reason, Koushirou found, in spite of every synapse in his brain firing warnings for him to _stay right there, where it's safe,_ now that someone else wanted to jump into harm's way, he became somewhat hysterically possessive of his proximity to danger.

* * *

To: myhairitsalive (a) sushiweb-dot-com  
From: just_kido (a) sushiweb-dot-com  
Subject: re: be my valentine?

His Revered Lord and Master of a Junior High School With 96 Students, Yagami Taichi,

The sea of anatomy papers I can attest to. It may prove more than I can handle to make it through alive, but if there are people who can swim the Strait of Gibraltar, I must not shrink in the face of a challenge. If I die, I graciously bequeath the contents of my chocolate box to you.

I'll come to your shindig if only so that you aren't disappointed when no one gets tangled in the streamers or breaks out in hives when it's time for Spin the Bottle. But you left out the most important detail, do we have to bring dates? Because Shin has already offered to don a skirt and go as my cousin, but I already went through that humiliation when I went to a party with Saki who has vowed never to go with me anywhere again ever, and she really is my cousin. I will come on the condition that there is a table at which I can sit and continue to forge my way through _Leeches, Moxibustion and Other Somewhat Nauseating Medical Practices_ if any of the following happens to me: 1) I don't get kissed at the kissing booth, 2) I do get kissed at the kissing booth, 3) the kissing booth attendant replaces herself with a caterpillar once my eyes are closed.

Junior High, lamentable though it is, did not leave me with many memories that do not end with people tricking me into kissing caterpillars. But I'll come to your party (provided my tie does not feel homicidal that day) and hear Yamato's band play, and get sick from too much candy, and watch over your valuables while the rest of you hit the dance floor.

(Also, congratulations on passing your high school entrance exams!)

Sincerely,

Certainly Not Casanova

P.S.: Your gallantry in offering to protect me from chocolate-covered nuts is much appreciated, but it is my sacred duty as a Knower of Useless Knowledge to inform you that almonds are much more than simple nuts. They are drupes, which means they are covered by a fleshy outer layer while they hang from trees, and also that since I am allergy-free I will be eating every last one of them.

* * *

_it's like soaring  
it's like gliding  
it's a rocket ship you're riding  
it's a feeling that can take you anywhere_

_so why they call it falling_  
_why they call it falling, why they call it falling_  
_I don't know_

_leeann womack, _"why they call it falling"


	2. February the Seventh

**Chapter Two  
February the Seventh  
**_  
in which there are woobles and too many references to chickens_

To: mywoobles (a) myhormones-dot-com  
From: someonewhowouldverymuchlikeh islifetogobacktonormal (a) therationalworld-dot-com  
Subject: Please cease and desist

Dear hormones,

I understand that I have entered the insidious phase of adolescence known as puberty, the onset of physical and hormonal transitions that will wreck havoc upon my person so that I am suddenly self-conscious when wearing pajamas out of doors. These changes will no doubt be inconvenient at times, but I have resolved to put up with all of them – every crack of my voice, every unnaturally hairy body part, every humiliating twinge in my nether regions – by taking on a very Zen outlook. I will be a paragon of serenity amidst turbulence. We can do this together, hormones. We share a body and are therefore a team. All I need from you in return is one small consideration, in the name of sanity and my future as more than Izumi Koushirou, The Boy Who Occasionally Looks Away From His Computer To Check The Weather:

Just stop what you are doing to me when I look at _him._ Think about him. Am vaguely reminded of him by the sight of loud, exuberant, shaggy-haired dogs. _Please_ stop, I don't want to be rude, I want this to be a fair and equitable partnership, but you doom me to a joyless existence if you don't stop fooling around. Look what you've reduced me to already. Twinges. Constant. Twinges.

please. Just with him. Stop. I am not above groveling.

In throes of agony untold,

Izumi Koushirou, The Boy Who Prefers Computers To Boys Yes He Does Indeed

* * *

On February the seventh, it rained. Taichi felt personally offended by that rain, as if the forces of the universe were conspiring to ruin his winter by reducing all the brilliant white snow to muddy sludge. They'd been jipped out of a white Christmas by a week long hot spell which no one could enjoy on account of school was still in, and immediately after break started came the blistering winds and sidewalks buried under snow drifts piled so high that Taichi saw an elementary schooler dive into one and completely vanish except for the pom on his hat. Now that Tokyo for once looked all wintry and magical, they got rain and 40 degree weather. February had good reason to be jealous of the spring months; after all, no one liked February. February was the obnoxious relative people invite to parties because after all they're family, but hope they'll get snowed it so no one has to pretend to enjoy yet another gift of fuzzy bunny sweaters. But if the rain was meant as a goodwill gesture, then February should have gone with a gift card.

"You should never try to be anyone but yourself," Taichi shouted through the classroom window.

"You're not stirring the pot, are you," Yamato tsked. The mother hen in him came out hyper-aware and clucking whenever he sensed someone trespassing on the integrity of his kitchen. He peeked into the enormous pot of melting chocolate and wrinkled his nose. "It's going to burn, Taichi."

"I'm watching it," Taichi replied with a careless wave, "I stirred it just before you poked your nose in, and by the way, you're sweating, that's unsanitary. Keep your gross sweaty nose away from my chocolate."

They had fifty heart-shaped molds and fifty flower-shaped ones, and also one which was meant to be two teddy bears hugging, but which inevitably came out of the oven each time looking like a lumpy stegosaurus. Volunteers and student council members had commandeered each of the ovens in the home economics room, and Taichi felt proud of himself for getting prep started this long before Valentine's Day. Usually they were stuck at the last minute squeezing every little bit out of their volunteers, like juicing lemons.

Three volunteers were dedicated to arranging sets of four chocolates (two hearts and two flowers, unless a "steggy bear" was available to replace one) in palm-sized paper boxes and wrapping them in pink tissue paper. Cooking and arranging alike were slow work, but he had the best people to work with and conversation flowed in a constant, comfortable stream.

Yamato was not on the student council, and though he was (Taichi would never admit aloud, but) the better cook between the two of them, he had no taste at all for chocolate. He also tended to avoid school functions. Yet here he was, stooped over a batch of candy, a checkered apron tied meticulously over his uniform and a smudge of melted chocolate near the corner of one eye. With intense focus, he gingerly removed each sweet from its delightful Valentines-y mold. Why he'd agreed to come help with so little argument was a mystery (well, not so much – Taichi had a hunch it had to do with a certain redhead whose _elegant hands_ often featured in Yamato's lyrics as of late). But whatever the reason, Taichi was grateful. With Yamato beside him, nothing ever seemed too huge or too complicated to tackle. He felt as if he'd been bench-pressing a sumo wrestler all this time, and never even noticed until Yamato came over to frown at him and ask who he thought that would impress.

Taichi reached out with his thumb and swiped at Yamato's smudge.

Yamato batted his hand away without looking up. "The flowers keep on breaking. Where did you get such cheap molds?"

"The dollar store." Picking up the discarded remains of a chocolate flower, Taichi took a solemn moment to mourn the ruin of such beauty before cracking it between his teeth. "Ow, shit, they're really frozen."

"Idiot," Yamato said fondly. "Does it taste alright?"

"It tastes like chocolate's supposed to taste. Sweet, rich, boring, predictable. I wish the chili pepper filling worked out, that would've given it some _whiz-bang…"_

They glanced over to the hot chili pepper chocolates station, which had exploded unexpectedly on three volunteers and lodged enough gunk in the burners as to render them useless. The volunteers ended up messy but undamaged; sadly, the same could not be said for the fruits of their labors.

"The party's already got enough _'whiz-bang',"_ Yamato pointed out as he took the matter of stirring the chocolate pot into his own hands. "You are the one running it. We will be lucky to escape with our lives after all your _whiz-bang."_

He was probably right about that; still, restlessness clawed at Taichi's nerves, urging him to think of something, anything so that this party didn't just go off alright, but so that it earned its place in the annals of Valentine's Day history. _Alright_ was hardly enough when you were the student body president _and_ the captain of soccer team, a combination of positions which practically made the school grounds his kingdom and his classmates his royal vassals this past year. No one attempted that much responsibility at once, he was a fool for trying it (and to be frank, it technically wasn't allowed, but the school was on the small side and he'd been his classmates' first pick for both posts anyway). Even so, for a first foray into politics he thought he hadn't done half badly.

But he could not try to shoulder the same weight in high school. Soccer or student council, it would hurt, but he'd have to pick. Which made next week's party that much more important: they were graduating in a month. Exams were done, passed, they were moving up to high school and anonymity, new teachers with new quirks, and long, unfriendly, perplexing hallways. All of which excited him; unknown halls simply motivated him to memorize the school faster, move up the ranks before anyone else, make sure every teacher and student and hallway monitor knew his name so that he was the first to come to mind whenever an opportunity arose ("Oh, beautiful visiting Bollywood actress Rani Mukherji needs someone to run behind her carrying her handkerchief? Why, I am sure Yagami Taichi is the man for the job, he is an _excellent_ carrier of handkerchiefs").

But high school wasn't here _yet,_ and before the fateful day arrived he wanted to preserve his legacy. This party would be his swan song. If they couldn't have hot chili pepper chocolates, and if the first years continued to refuse to wear tablecloths and go around as cupids so that by the end of the night everyone had been kissed at least once, then how would he make all the magic and whimsy?

"This whole school is bigoted against whimsy," Taichi declared.

"That's because between your frilly kitten apron and your ridiculous hair, they handle more on a daily basis than most schools do in a decade."

"You are a wonderful friend, Yamato," grumbled Taichi, "supportive and uplifting. Where would I be without you?"

"Wandering around in a tablecloth all by your pathetic self, crying over lost glory as you force-feed people slivers of exploded chocolate, probably," answered Yamato.

"Yeah, that sounds about right. That's where I'd be without my friends, a doleful, tablecloth-wearing social pariah. Tis the season for counting one's blessings!"

"Cheer up." Yamato flicked crumbs at him. "Think of all the havoc you'll wreck in high school. The cleaning staff will blacklist you again and you'll spend another three years dodging suspiciously placed buckets and mops."

Taichi smirked and returned the flick, sending a spray of the detested chocolate into Yamato's face. Yamato winced and pawed at his face, inadvertently streaking more chocolate over his nose like a jagged scar. He made a face like a gargoyle and hurled himself at Taichi, knocking them both into the window, from where they wrestled to the floor with growls more fit for beasts than boys in frilly aprons, as the pot sat on the stove resenting its state of neglect, the chocolate blackening around the edge.

* * *

The energetic clatter coming from the home ec. room made Koushirou hesitate in the hallway, an old discomfort creeping over him. Koushirou was not shy. He tended to keep to himself on account of he liked it, liked the freedom to concentrate on his programming without distractions, without hands waving in front of his eyes to see if he was still awake. Sometimes he felt a bit socially awkward, when boys in his own class whose legs had rocketed skyward at some point last term tossed his backpack to and fro over his head, or when girls bent over to talk to him and he got a front row view down their blouses.

He did not envy gangly teenage boy legs, and he tried not to be intimidated when his line of sight came exactly lacy pink bra level. Though he was quiet, and though it sometimes took more effort than usual to ignore the unimaginative quips about his height, Koushirou did not consider himself bad with people. He might not list "social skills" as a particular strength on his resume, but he liked his peers. Mostly.

But right now he wished they didn't exist. No way could he enter that room without causing a stir. No matter how hard he worked at being inconspicuous, he just knew he'd make a fool of himself. He'd probably trip. The doors would swing open as he fell in with a thunderous "HELLO, I AM HERE TO MAKE CHOCOLATES" that astonished him as much as everyone else, and the entire student council would stare at the loud-mouthed intruder with palpable disgust. "Who let _that_ in here?" they'd ask around. "What _is_ that? I would say it's that mousey president of the computer club who doesn't talk very much, except he's so low to the ground that I can only tell him by his cowlick."

Part of him knew this vision of his was absurd – he would open the doors with the most self-deprecating _"excuse me"_ known to man, and sneak among the rabble of students until he found Taichi, the only one who would actually express how boggled he was that Koushirou had emerged from his cozy den for any reason other than a city-wide power outage.

Yet, somehow, it just seemed so incredible to think that _no one else_ could tell why he was such a _huge, twitchy wad_ of frayed cables. That it wasn't written all over him in queasy, spindly letters: _What I am about to do makes me want to hurl._ They would know, they would _all_ know, and Taichi would know which above anything else could not happen.

And so, there stood Izumi Koushirou, frozen stiff before a room full of his carefree, chocolate-covered peers; Izumi Koushirou, who once escaped the slimy and possibly perverted grasp of a massive brain on tentacles; Izumi Koushirou, who managed to guide a particularly incomprehensible girl through a maze of booby-traps in spite of her shrieks knocking out his ear drums; there he stood, Izumi Koushirou, who had so much left to live for, no longer able to recall what it felt like to face down a legion of Bakemon, though surely that took more courage than this.

He just needed to be realistic, he told himself, while he stood there. He just needed to shake that tremble out of his knees –

While his knees (and his lunch) were yet threatening mutiny, the door burst open of its own accord, or rather at the behest of a two-headed tangle of limbs and unruly blond-brunet hair, which stumbled into the hall overcome with chicken-like laughter. The Chickenzilla abruptly halted at the sight of Koushirou.

"Koushirou!" shouted Taichi, grinning broadly and somewhat breathless due to Yamato clinging on his back like some chimeric protrusion. "What are you doing here? There's no wi-fi!"

Koushirou's mouth had gone dry. He licked his lips before answering. "I'm… here for the chocolate."

"You're _here_ for the chocolate, as in this is a chocolate heist, or you're _here_ for it as in you think it must be lonely waiting in those little packages to be eaten, so out of the goodness of your heart you've come to console it?" Taichi hefted Yamato's weight higher on his back, the muscles in his wiry arms flexing. He was wearing kittens. On his apron, tiny, ginger and white, beady-eyed kittens. There was chocolate smeared over one entire side of his face, and more was dripping onto his shoulder from a whisk Yamato held dangling in front of him.

"I'm here," stammered Koushirou, "I'm here –"

"He's here to help _make the chocolate,_ you big-eared freak." The chocolate-soaked whisk waved around in flippant disregard for the welfare of the boys' crisp white shirts. Yamato looked at Koushirou with an apologetic tip to his mouth. "That's done, Koushirou. We're cleaning up now."

"Oh." Inexplicably, Koushirou felt defeated. At the same time he realized how pointless this whole scheme was. Join Operation Valentine's Day Party under the guise of Actually Wanting To Help, while covertly gauging Taichi's every expression for signs of his being helplessly sick with love for a woobly cactus-haired sixth grader, or that said cactus-haired sixth grader had "made his move," as it were. All while hiding his own woobles from their object of woobliness.

He should have taken into account the effect other people being there also would have on his plan. Especially _this_ other person. When Taichi and Yamato were together, they ceased to be separate entities. If one was happy, they were both ecstatic. If one was mad, the other threw the first punch. Usually they were happy. Because Taichi and Yamato did not need to lay out intricate schemes to find out each other's secrets. It was second nature to them to share every triumph, every failure – secrets flowed between as if mind and matter made no fit barriers. It was a sort of osmosis that often left Koushirou baffled and envious.

"Since you're here, maybe you can peel this barbarian off me," said Taichi.

"Barbarian, am I," Yamato tried to jam his knee into Taichi's side. "Five minutes ago you called me a fungus."

"You are a barbarian who's so covered in fungi that you've actually become one. Barbarian the fungus, that's what you are, with green fuzz and pus and all that. I don't want to know where all it's growing."

"Any fungus I have, I caught from you, you unwashed piece of filth."

Already Koushirou felt ejected from the conversation. Standing there silently, forgotten, while the two of them insulted each other's hygiene habits, filled his cheeks with heat as much as if he had made a spectacle of himself in the home ec. room. They'd be sure to notice if he turned to leave, but if he stayed the humiliation would continue.

He decided to go.

"Hey, what, you're leaving?" cried Taichi.

"If you guys are all done, there's no need for me here," Koushirou replied tersely.

"But you just – _omph –_ you just – _guh –"_ Finally managing to detach the fungus, Taichi made a show of rolling the kinks out of his back, then sprang down the hall to Koushirou's side with all the reserve of a rubber band.

"But you just got here," he proclaimed, with an animated look so much like the yippy shaggy-haired dog with its tongue lolling and dribble that Koushirou had to resist the urge to scratch him under the chin.

"All the same, if there's nothing I can do to help –"

"There's plenty. There's, uh. What sort of help do we need, Yamato?"

"There're rags for cleaning," supplied Yamato.

"Rags for cleaning! That's right. We need rag people. And where there're rags, of course, there're buckets of soapy water."

"I don't know that I have any special skill in rags," said Koushirou, trying to make himself feel less happy that Taichi trusted him to dunk rags in soapy water.

"What are you talking about? You'd make an _excellent_ rag person, Koushirou," Taichi went on, and made a grab for Koushirou's hand, which Koushirou did not resist as he felt pretty confident he'd gone into cardiac arrest.

"Besides." The sincere glint in Taichi's eye might have convinced Rose to jump with him from the prow of the Titanic. "Baby, it's cold outside."

"Well – I guess – I can be a rag person," stammered Koushirou.

_Oh God,_ he thought in horror. _I am a woobly mess after all._

* * *

To: wooblymess (a) yourmind-dot-com  
From: yourwoobles (a) yourhormones-dot-com  
Subject: re: Please cease and desist

ACCEPT YOUR WOOBLES, WERTHER

accept them

Also, grow a pair

- hormones

* * *

_I ought to say no, no, no - - - - mind if I move in closer?  
at least I'm gonna say that I tried__ - - - - w_hat's the sense in hurting my pride?  
I really can't stay_ - - - - b_aby, don't hold out  
ah, but it's cold outside

_frank loesser,_ "baby, it's cold outside"


End file.
